


The Better Path

by Enneara



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode: s08e04 The Last of the Starks, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Oral Sex, Sex, they actually talk about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enneara/pseuds/Enneara
Summary: They had always been each other’s mirror. She had seen herself as a knight in his eyes before his sword had ever touched her shoulder. He had seen a better version of himself in her, and that was  what had made him hers: the same reason she now had to lose him.He touched her face. ‘I will find you. If I survive this. I will come for you, and I will never leave your side unless you ask me to.’





	The Better Path

**Author's Note:**

> I’m sure a lot of people have done this already, but here’s my take on a scene from what must have been the intense shagfest of Jaime and Brienne’s lost weeks at Winterfell, leading up to a version of him leaving that I could have lived with. Thanks to everyone who left kudos and comments on The Opposite of War - you are all amazing. Here’s to hope.

There was so much to do. A castle to repair and scour, a year’s worth of firewood to replenish, winter food to distribute to the villagers. Brienne tried to focus on the work, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. How was she supposed to pay attention to the details of provisioning the keep when she couldn’t stop thinking of Jaime’s body, Jaime’s mouth, Jaime in her bed night after night showing her all the things they could do together that weren’t fighting? She stood by Sansa’s side in the great hall, trying to attend to the matters of the day, but all she wanted to do was find Jaime and drag him back to their room and explore him, take him in her mouth and hands and deep inside her until they were both aching and exhausted. The winter deepened each day, but the cold never touched her. She lived in a heated globe of desire, counting down to the moment when Sansa released her from her duties with a knowing nod, and she could stride back to her room, trying to slow her pace in case anyone saw her hurrying.

He was waiting for her, sitting by the fire in his shirt. When the door opened, he was already looking at her like a starved man.

‘About time,’ he said, and surged to his feet. Within two seconds he had her pinned against the wall, feverishly helping her undress. When she was naked, he slid his hand between her legs and grunted in satisfaction. ‘I see you’ve been thinking about me.’

‘A bold assumption,’ she said, staring at him, her whole body singing with him. How was she supposed to live with wanting him so much?

‘Really?’ he said in a low voice. ‘Because I’ve been thinking about you. All,’ he grunted, ‘day,’ and thrust the proof hard against her thigh.

She couldn’t take it any more. She lifted him in her arms, carrying him to the bed. She wanted him inside her, but he muttered, ‘Patience,’ and slid down her body, kissing her belly until he buried his head between her legs.

The first time he had done this, she had frozen and asked, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Trust me, you’ll like it,’ he had said.

She had lifted her head, half-afraid and half-confused. ‘How can you be sure — _oh_.’

Now, she lay back and watched his head move, felt the tickle of his beard on the soft insides of her thighs. When he moved on her, his mouth and his tongue and the nudge of his nose in her tender places, she cried out, holding on to the headboard, a day’s worth of anticipation and obsession spilling out in pleasure.

‘Come here,’ she commanded when he had satisfied her, and he crawled up the bed to her, panting and triumphant. She kissed his salt-tasting mouth and lowered herself onto him with a gasp of need. She braced against the wall and rode him, his hand gripping her hard enough to bruise, his face naked with wanting. He gasped her name as she brought him to his release. One day, she thought as they collapsed together, this urgency would wane, and they would be old lovers, slow and comfortable with each other. Part of her almost looked forward to that.

‘Today was interesting,’ he said afterwards, when they were lying naked together, his hand caressing the dip of her waist and making her shiver.

‘Oh?’ She pulled herself out of her hot-blooded reverie, tried to focus. ‘What were you doing?’

‘Training some of the keep boys.’

She snorted. ‘I hope they behaved themselves.’

‘Oh, they were fine. It was their mothers that were the problem.’

She lifted herself on her arm. ‘What did they do?’ she asked sternly.

‘One of them threw a rock at me. Don’t look so outraged. I dodged it easily. The other one called me Lady Tarth as I walked away.’ A lazy smile spread across Jaime’s face. ‘I believe she thought I’d be insulted.’

Brienne shook her head. ‘She should call you by your name.’

Jaime’s mouth quirked. ‘I’d rather be Lady Tarth than Kingslayer.’

Brienne touched his face. ‘I’m sorry. It can’t be easy for you, being here.’

He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling. ‘For some reason, just now, I find I don’t wish to be anywhere else.’

She rolled onto him, kissed him as his hand shivered down her back. It awed her, the sense of oneness she felt when she was with him, as if his body had become an extension of her own. She relaxed onto him, her head on his chest, his hand in her hair. ‘It feels strange,’ she said, surprised at the dreaminess in her own voice.

He kissed the top of her head. ‘What?’

She changed position to look up into his eyes. ‘Being this happy,’ she said. ‘When everyone else is marching down to battle.’

‘You deserve it,’ he said, looking at her with a fondness she couldn’t bear.

‘So do you.’

He gave her a tight smile and looked away. She followed, touching his face until he looked at her.

‘Jaime,’ she said deliberately. ‘You deserve it.’

He half-laughed. ‘With everything I’ve done?’ He shook his head. ‘One fight doesn’t make up for that, however long and bloody.’

She sat up, serious. ‘To have come from where you were, from who you were, and become who you are today? When every person you loved was trying to keep you on that dark path?’

‘Not every one.’ His mouth hinted at a smile. ‘I seem to recall a shining lady knight who showed me the better path.’

She scoffed. ‘I may have showed it to you. But you took every step.’

He was staring at her, an odd intensity in his eyes. ‘Every purely good deed I’ve ever done in my life, I’ve done for you.’

‘And each one cost you.’ She bent over him, tenderly kissed the stump of his right arm.

He looked as if he was on the point of crying. ‘And some of them cost you.’ His hand traced the scars where the bear’s claws had raked her. She caught his hand, held it to her breast. They fell asleep that way, entwined together, breathing as one.

*

In the night, Brienne woke to find the bed empty. She sat up, her heart in her throat. Jaime was sitting by the fire, half-dressed. ‘Can’t sleep?’ she asked him softly.

‘It has to be me.’ He didn’t turn. His voice was strange, thick with an emotion she couldn’t name.

Brienne got out of bed, pulled a cloak around her shoulders. She padded to the fire and stood by Jaime’s chair. ‘What are you talking about?’

He was staring into the fire, a terrible emptiness in his eyes. ‘If Cersei doesn’t surrender, Daenerys will burn King’s Landing. And Cersei won’t care. She’ll let it happen. Out of spite.’

Brienne felt it then, an inevitability that twisted her stomach, reached up through her throat and choked her. _No_ , she begged the gods silently. _Please. Don’t take him away. Not when I only just found him._

She sat down at his feet. His hand slid under her cloak, caressed her naked shoulder. She gazed up at him, willing her voice to calm. ‘You think you can persuade her to surrender?’

Jaime laughed, a soft, bitter laugh. ‘No.’ He shifted his eyes, looked deliberately at Brienne. ‘But I can get her alone.’

Brienne swallowed. ‘I don’t like this plan.’

‘Neither do I.’ He closed his eyes. ‘But trust me, if there was another one, I would have thought of it.’

There had to be a way to stop him. A reason it wouldn’t work. ‘Why would she trust you enough to let you in?’ Brienne asked. ‘You abandoned her. Disobeyed her. She already sent a sellsword with a crossbow north to murder you. What makes you think she would hesitate if you turned up at her door?’

‘Because then the idea of killing me wouldn’t be abstract and far away. I would be there, in front of her. She wouldn’t be able to do it.’

Brienne spoke quietly. ‘How do you know the same won’t be true for you?’

He looked at her for a long time. ‘I don’t,’ he said finally.

‘I hate this plan.’ Brienne looked away into the fire. Jaime’s hand moved down her arm, unbearably gentle. She stared up at him, snapping. ‘Jaime, be reasonable. Even if you could do it — do you think the Mountain and the rest of Cersei’s Queensguard would let you leave the Red Keep alive?’ She couldn’t stop her voice shaking.

He gave her a fond, despairing smile. ‘You of all people can’t tell me not to do the right thing because there’s a risk I might get killed in the process. We’re knights, Brienne. You taught me what that means.’

‘I didn’t teach you.’ She pressed her cheek against his leg. ‘Reminded you, perhaps.’

His hand rested in her hair. ‘Still. You know better than anyone why I have to do this.’

She gazed at him, feeling the tears come, trying to resist them. A new conviction filled her, surging through her heart. ‘I’ll come with you.’

He sighed. ‘No you won’t. You’re sworn to Lady Sansa, and she won’t leave Winterfell.’ He gave her a soft, amused look. ‘Besides, do you really think my plan would work if we came riding up to King’s Landing together?’

Brienne opened her mouth, improvising. ‘I could say I had broken from Sansa. That I was loyal to you now.’

‘Cersei wouldn’t believe the first part for a second. And as for the second part —’ He shook his head.

Brienne sat up. ‘You don’t think she would believe I was loyal to you?’

Jaime laughed. ‘Oh, she’d believe that. The issue is that she wouldn’t believe that’s all there is between us.’ He cast her a dry look. ‘My brother informs me that we are — obvious.’

‘Obvious?’ Brienne felt her face heat. She had prided herself on treating Jaime like an indifferent acquaintance in public. ‘How?’

He closed his eyes in a smile. ‘How did Tyrion put it? We look at each other like our souls are fucking.’

Brienne shook her head, dismissing his objection. ‘I can pretend.’

He bent and kissed her forehead. ‘No, you can’t. That is one of the things I love about you.’

Her heart contracted with painful joy. Why did she have to feel this now, when it was all about to be taken from her?

‘I want her to know,’ Jaime said, stroking her cheek. ‘But only at the very end. If she knew how I felt about you when I arrived, she would burn me to ashes before I got inside the walls.’

Brienne stared at him until it hurt too much. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she said miserably.

‘I don’t want to go. I still hate the fucking North, but if I can hardly bear being a few yards from you all day, how am I supposed to bear all those miles?’ Jaime’s hand moved to her neck, gripped it with the same intensity she saw in his eyes. His voice heated. ‘How am I supposed to bear not touching you?’

Without a word, she rose to her feet, pulling him up with her. She backed him into the bed. He was already tugging off his shirt as she cast her cloak on the floor, forgotten.

They had made love in so many ways over the weeks since he had appeared at her door with a flagon of wine and the barest idea of what he was doing. But never like this. Brienne clutched at him, gasping as he drove into her. For a long, shuddering time, he stayed buried deep in her, barely moving, holding her face between his hands.

‘Jaime,’ she said, and he gasped and began to move in her for the last time. She refused the thought, even as it made the moment bright and terrible as wildfire, even as their eyes stayed locked to the very end.

She didn’t watch him as he dressed. She sobbed quietly, her face turned to the wall. When he touched her shoulder, she turned to see his face, a mask of grief that mirrored her own. They had always been each other’s mirror. She had seen herself as a knight in his eyes before his sword had ever touched her shoulder. He had seen a better version of himself in her, and that was what had made him hers: the same reason she now had to lose him.

He touched her face. ‘I will find you. If I survive this. I will come for you, and I will never leave your side unless you ask me to.’

She gazed at him, nodding, holding his face in her hands, crying too hard to speak.

‘Go,’ she said, finally, and he went.


End file.
